


smoke signals

by somethingdifferent



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy, The Sopranos
Genre: Alternate Universe - Mob, Basically, F/M, Italian Mafia, Sopranos AU, Therapy, feat. copious violations of good psychiatry or whatever, listen if you want to read about rey being a "good" therapist this fic is not for you lol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-23
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-27 03:15:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20753429
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/somethingdifferent/pseuds/somethingdifferent
Summary: She looks up Kylo Ren when she gets to her office, double checking the locked door and closing the blinds. She reads as far asCONNECTION MOB MAFIA FELON CRIMINAL MURDERand then she snaps her laptop shut.[rey/ben; therapist/mob boss au a la the sopranos]





	smoke signals

**Author's Note:**

> if u haven't seen the sopranos: get on it. there are several scenes inspired by the show but of course things are changed around quite a bit. hope you guys like this it took me SO LONG but i just had to write this!!!

Pylades: I'll take care of you.

Orestes: It's rotten work.

Pylades: Not to me. Not if it's you.

\- An Oresteia, tr. Anne Carson

Tony Soprano: You know where I was yesterday when you called? I was outside a whorehouse, while a guy that works for me was inside beating the shit out of a guy that owes me money. Broke his arm. Put a bullet in his kneecap.

Dr. Melfi: How'd that make you feel?

Tony Soprano: Wished it was me in there.

Dr. Melfi: Giving the beating or taking it?

\- The Sopranos

Session 40

Rey used to be a professional. At one point she wanted to help him. This is her excuse, and has been for a while, and that was something Leia used to say - about a road to hell and good intentions. All of that long gone by now.

She watches as Ben stands from the chair across from hers. He’s taking his time, making a meal out of it. When he bends toward her, Rey flinches away instinctively. Ben turns her face toward him, holding her chin in his hand.

”Look at me,” he murmurs. It’s the first he’s spoken since he came in. He’s opening her mouth with his thumb, and she is letting him. She is imagining him reaching down and pulling something from the back of her throat. She wants to bite down and taste him between her teeth.

”I’m looking at you,” she says. “What is it you want me to see?”

Session 1

Her therapist advises her to cancel their second session, but she doesn't. She can't begin to say why. Luke chalks it up to a lingering anxiety over abandonment, a reluctance to leave anyone, even someone like her new client, alone. Rey thinks it must be more than that, but she doesn't correct him.

She only figures out who he really is when she discusses the meeting with Luke.

”Waste management? Your client, who you said wears all black, and is Italian, and is built like a linebacker, said his business was waste management?”

”Yes,” Rey says. “And?”

Luke smiles wryly at her, for a moment saying nothing. “You’re not from Newark, Rey,” he says finally. “As a colleague and a New Jersey native, I’m suggesting you let this one go.”

He may as well have told her to give up her whole profession. Rey knows she is incapable of letting anything go. Would rather tear her hands to shreds holding on.

She looks up Kylo Ren when she gets to her office, double checking the locked door and closing the blinds. She reads as far as CONNECTION MOB MAFIA FELON CRIMINAL MURDER and then she snaps her laptop shut.

Rey feels suddenly as if there is someone in the room with her. She can still see Kylo sitting in the chair across from hers: his eyes a dark void, his hands huge and calloused, his mouth unsmiling. His long, long legs were practically folded in half sitting in the chair. There was something about him, she knew it even at first glance. The muscle, the tension, the hugeness of his limbs - all that violence simmering underneath. She thought, at first glance, how distinct he was, how different he looked from regular men, and she knew it was something he had likely never noticed.

_Waste management,_ she thinks now. Rey imagines him dragging a body from the backseat of a shiny black car. She wants to throw up. 

She doesn’t cancel the session. 

Session 2

Rey does her research. A necessity in her profession, but she can't deny that it's more of a morbid curiosity in this case. As far as she can see, there is nothing actionable connecting him to any crimes, nothing except a general acceptance of that he is some kind of captain for a family called the First Order. She reads, _known felon associates, suspected robbery, suspected assault, suspected arson, questioned in connection with._

Aside from that, there is nothing. She can’t find any information on his family, on previous employment, on where he is from. He is, to her, little more than a ghost. 

When he shows up for their next session, Rey is better prepared. The moment he sits down, Rey clears her throat and smiles.

"Mr. Ren," she begins calmly. She is tiptoeing; she can practically feel the eggshells under her feet. “Before we start our hour together, I think there is something we need to get out of the way."

"Oh," he replies, raising a dark eyebrow. "Really?"

"A few ethical ground rules. I think it will help us understand each other better." Kylo says nothing, staring blankly at her. He looks so strange, sitting in her flowery, overstuffed armchair. His clothes are all black, from his button down shirt to his shining leather shoes. Rey takes his silence as an invitation to continue, and presses on. "Everything you say to me here is strictly confidential, with two exceptions. I am obligated to make a report to police if I suspect that you are planning to hurt yourself, or -“ _eggshells,_ she thinks, _eggshells,_ “or if you are planning on hurting someone else."

Rey holds her breath as she watches the man across from her. Slowly, Kylo smiles, almost gentle. He adjusts his posture, straightening his back, crossing one leg over his knee. "Is that everything, Dr. Smith?”

“That's everything," she says, smiling.

He nods thoughtfully. "I understand," he says finally, his voice cutting off the end of his sentence in a strange way. The end of the statement, she realizes, sounds incomplete, like he was going to say something else. I understand that. I understand you.

Session 20

She sees it on the news that morning. Another mob hit, it says, growing tensions between rivaling families, the First Order and the Rebels. The reporter says the murder is being called an execution.

Rey isn’t paying close attention until she reads the name at the bottom of the screen, UNKAR PLUTT, in big red letters. Something heavy and solid drops in the pit of her stomach. She thinks of a black dog ripping a body to shreds; she thinks of a hand on her leg.

She should be horrified, and she should be planning how to get out of town. She knows she should be.

Rey feels a smile stretching across her face, easy and quick as a cut.

Session 5

His grandfather, he tells her, was in the business. Captain of industry, boss of this whole side of New Jersey. Kylo can remember catching glimpses of the man throughout his house, like a ghost: the corner of his elbow in a photograph, the unopened box in the highest shelf of his parents' closet. A secret shame, he says. His mother never said a word. 

“I found out who he was, who he really was, when I was in middle school. Some of the other boys asked me if I was going to kill their families.”

”Children can be cruel," Rey says evenly.

”Children can be vicious," he says, and then changes tack abruptly. "He strangled her to death. My grandfather. He killed his wife in the hospital after she gave birth. He denied it until the day he died, and he never served time."

Rey almost snorts. "I find that hard to believe."

"You shouldn't. You'd be lucky to find one honest cop in this city, just one. The feds, well, that's another story."

Rey looks at him. Kylo is slouching, his shoulders angled against the arm of the chair. He looks petulant, like a teenager. Rey wonders how many afternoons he wasted in detention, if he even bothered to show up to school. It makes her think suddenly of sitting in her psychology class in London, their science credit for resident slackers. She remembers her teacher, an older woman, a retired former psychiatrist, who took a shine to her and wrote on every paper _fantastic observations, Rey!_ Maz had written a recommendation for Rey to attend university, helped her apply to scholarship programs. Rey shakes her head slightly, pushing the thought away. "His wife," she says, drawing the word out. "I find it interesting that you don't refer to her as your grandmother."

Kylo shrugs. "I never met her."

Rey considers him. "Did you meet your grandfather?"

"Once," he says. "When I was five. My mother thinks I'm not old enough to remember, but I do. He was old and sick and he begged her, I guess. He had cancer and it ate away at him."

When she was five, she thinks, she was left at a children’s playground, alone to rot. "It must have been hard, meeting him like that,” she says. “A man you don't know, who your mother never introduced you to, in the hospital, looking so ill."

"It wasn't," Kylo says. His eyes are closed off to her somehow, his brow furrowed. Rey leans closer, watching him gaze blankly at the painting on her wall. A Monet reproduction, a pond full of flowers. Up close, it looks like nothing but colors. "Even sick, he still seemed...huge. Larger than life. My mother was crying, I'd never seen her cry before. And my uncle was there too, her twin brother. They both looked so heartbroken. And ashamed."

"Why do you think that?"

Kylo glances up at her finally, meeting her eyes. Rey can suddenly see him, can suddenly see every wound gaping open on his body, every bruise and cut and scar. He must be covered in them, under all that black. He looks so frightfully sad. "Because it's the same look they had every time they looked at me."

Session 12

The first time Kylo tries to kiss her, she stops him. This will be important to Rey later: her stopping him. It will remind her of her principles, and how easily she ignored them.

He does it in the middle of their hour, holds her face in his hand and leans forward. Standing over her like that, tall and imposing, it looks a little like he wants to eat her. Rey shudders.

Kylo's eyes harden when Rey tilts her head back, evading his mouth. “No,” she says, as gently as possible. “You don’t want this.”

He scoffs. “I don’t want it? I want you. I’m in love with you.”

”You’re not,” Rey says. “I know you think you are - it’s called transference. Believe it or not, this is good. It means our work here is affecting you. We’re building to something. We're going somewhere, and you are feeling what you're feeling because of it."

”I dream about you,” he says, and it sounds like a confession. Like he’s admitting to a crime. Kylo is usually careful with his language, walking a line between what he can and can’t indulge for legality’s sake. He isn’t being careful now. “Every night. I can’t sleep, dreaming about you.”

"That's not uncommon," Rey says, trying to sound more confident than she is. Truthfully, she's never had a patient confess their love for her. She isn't that experienced. "The important thing is that you acknowledged these feelings."

"Bullshit," he bites out. "That's bullshit, and you know it. I've seen how you look at me. I know you. You want this too."

"I don't," she replies. Her stomach is churning. "You don't know anything about me. To you, I am nothing more than a woman who listens attentively to everything you have to say." At her words, he seems to deflate, little by little. Rey almost smiles, dealing the final blow: "I am what you wish your mother was.”

”Don't say another fucking word about that woman," he snarls. For the first time since he stepped into her office, Rey understands the fear he must inspire in others. In his victims. "This has nothing to do with that."

She blinks. "It has everything to do with it, Mr. Ren. Otherwise, we wouldn't be here." Kylo seethes, seeming for a moment like he might say more, but finally he sits back down. Rey lets out her held breath as quietly as she can, and continues. "Your mother was the one who witnessed your first episode, wasn't she. She's the one who recommended your try psychotherapy."

"An episode?" He scoffs. "I passed out, that's all. A little dehydration. I didn't eat breakfast."

"That's not accurate, Mr. Ren. And you know it." Kylo doesn't reply, his mouth set in an angry line. "Let's go through that episode again. The first panic attack. The trigger, you said, was seeing your mother on the sidewalk. This woman you've been estranged from for over ten years - just walking down the street. Take me back through what you were doing before that."

"Like I said before," he grinds out through his teeth, "I was speaking with a gentleman my boss asked me to see. A coworker. We got coffee." Rey corrects in her mind: broke his kneecaps. She says nothing, waiting patiently for him to continue. "We were just leaving the restaurant," (the alley), "and across the street, I saw her. For a second, I didn't know if it was really her, but then I knew. Her hair. She always kept it long, does it up these weird ways. She turned around and saw me, and she saw me see her, too. And - and my hands were - there was - on my hands - never mind. First, it just felt like this fuzziness in my head. And it was this feeling in my chest, like, like something was squeezing around my ribs, so tight I couldn't breathe. When I woke up, she was with me. She had my head in her lap."

Rey watches Kylo then. His dark eyes are lowered to the ground, the light shining above him. With his head bowed, she could almost picture him in mass as a child, stained glass coloring his black hair, his mother and father beside him. In her mind, their faces are a blank.

"For a second, I - I don't know." He breathes shakily, his voice so quiet Rey has to lean forward to hear him. "I thought it was all just a bad dream. I thought I was at home. And she was just - waking me up for school."

Session 16

It's after her last patient leaves that Rey sees him in the parking lot. Plutt is leaning on her car, a grin stretched across his face. She hesitates in her stride, just long enough for the grin to grow wider. Rey moves her keys from her palm to between her fingers, trying to recall her women's self-defense course a month prior. She remembers major arteries - carotid, femoral. As she approaches, Plutt pushes himself, with some effort, off of her driver side door and smiles down at her. Rey doesn't blink.

"My little girl," he sneers. "So this is what you've been up to."

"Leave," she says, trying to sound more confident than she is. "Now. Or I will scream for security."

Plutt holds up his hands in mock surrender. "You got me, darling," he says. "I'm leaving. Just remember, if I can find you now - Well. You know the rest.”

Rey waits until he is completely out of sight before she drops to the ground, her legs no longer able to support her. She doesn’t realize that she’s crying until a tear drips down her nose and onto her skirt. Eventually, she gets back up and drives home.

Luke is furious when Rey tells him about the encounter. “You need to start asking the night guard to walk you out to your car when you leave the building. You could have been assaulted, or worse.”

Rey nearly laughs at that. “You know as well as I do that if he wanted that, he would have done it. He probably just wants some money.”

”Even so,” Luke says, “My sister would never forgive me if I let anything happen to you.”

Rey smiles at the thought of Leia, her old professor. ”Nothing will happen to me,” Rey reassures him. “I’ll get the night guard to start walking me out to my car if it makes you feel better.”

That night, she dreams that she is a child again. Unkar Plutt stands over her, his fists raised above his head. She is crying, trembling, shrinking away. And, suddenly, as she watches, a black dog barrels down the hallway, bites down on Plutt's neck, and rips him to pieces.

Rey wakes up feeling frightened. And, strangely, relieved. If he finds her again - Well. She won’t be unprepared.

Session 37

"Kylo Ren?"

Rey claps her hands over her mouth as soon as the words leave his lips. Across from her, Luke's eyes are wide, his jaw hanging open.

"Oh my god," she gasps, "I'm so sorry. I can't believe I just revealed my client's name. It just - slipped out. I feel so unprofessional."

Luke is shaking his head, looking on the edge of tears. "No," he moans, dropping his head in his hands, "no, no, no." He sounds like he is in agony, and Rey is suddenly frightened. She wants to reach for his hand, but Luke’s eyes are unfocused and wild.

"Luke?" she says tenatively.

"I thought it was Hux, or Phasma, or fucking Mitaka. Not him. Not Ben.” Her therapist, her colleague, her mentor - he is beating his fists over his head. His face a mask of anguish. And, worse, fear. “How could this happen? Why would he pick you?”

”Ben?” Rey says. There is something caught in her throat, she thinks. There is something waiting to choke her that’s already worked its way inside. “Who is Ben?”

Session 10

Rey drives home. The New Jersey turnpike is occasionally beautiful but in an incidental way, the kind of beauty that is unnoticed, unnamed, unimportant. Back when Rey first imagined living in the states, she had pictured herself in New York or Los Angeles, somewhere fabulous and big and anonymous, somewhere she could become and be whatever she wanted. Someone else. Somewhere else. Kylo told her at their session earlier that he was born in Jersey but that his family, on his mother's side at least, has roots in Italy. In the old country, he said, sounding a lot like someone from The Godfather. She'd thought about that line Al Pacino says in the third movie, _just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!_, and resisted the impulse to ask Kylo if he'd seen it. She's crossing over the bridge, driving too fast, glancing to the side to catch a glimpse of what apparently passes for the view out here - a collection of dead and rotting trees. _What makes you think they're rotting,_ the clinical part of her is saying, while the other half is doing nothing but listen to the radio, _we'd like to help you learn to help yourself._ Everything in America is new, even the turnpike is little more than 60 years old; the houses she used to live in in England were all much older, decrepit and rotting, and even the new ones were crumbling and built on a sinking foundation. She remembers something Kylo said at their session about a childhood interest in history, after she'd challenged him on why he never tried to do anything else: _nothing to do about it now,_ he said. Her commute home is too long, 30 minutes without traffic, and she turns up the radio to cover the sound of construction, _where have you gone Jo DiMaggio,_ and finally there is her exit.

_Just when I thought I was_ _out,_ she thinks,_ they pull me back in!_

Session 34

Kylo is in a good mood when he sits down. Rey smiles warmly, taking in his relaxed posture, his easy grin.

"You're looking good," she says. He nods his head, his smile getting wider. He looks like the cat that ate the canary. Rey chooses not to dwell on the metaphor. "Is there anything in particular that's bringing this about?"

"A promotion," he says. "My old boss, he, uh - passed away. Sadly.”

Rey feels herself harden at his words. She grinds her teeth together, hearing her jaw click in her ear. “He died?”

Kylo nods. She can see it in his face at that moment. That a weight has been lifted from him. That he is, of all things, happy. “He was a miserable bastard. And the things I did for that man - well, no more. I’m done with him. And it’s thanks to you.”

Rey can feel her face drain of color. “Thanks to me?”

”Of course,” he says. “You have done so much to help me. And I’m fucking glad he kicked the bucket.”

”And," Rey says, her voice shaking from anger, "how exactly did that happen?”

Kylo shrugs, looking away. “Being old.”

”And if I looked it up on the news now, would it say the same thing? Would it say he died in his sleep?”

”It...might say something else.” Rey stares at him until he continues, his voice quiet but still pleased. “It might say he was shot. A few times.”

Rey is still for a moment. She focuses on her breath, clenching and unclenching her hands. “Your growth,” she begins haltingly, controlling her voice, “if we can call it that, since you seem to still be retreating to your typical coping mechanisms of machismo and fatal violence - comes not out of your own sacrifice and work, but on the back of others. You have grown the way a parasite does. Your growth comes only from death.”

Kylo looks furious. For a moment, Rey feels that familiar twinge of genuine fear. Of horror. But it passes as quickly as it comes, and then he seems nothing but weary. “Maybe,” he says, voice soft, “a parasite is all I am.”

”It’s not,” she says, with more force than intended. Rey startles at the strength of her own certainty. She reaches toward him, and Kylo’s eyes flick down to her hand, open and outstretched. She feels reckless, like she might say something stupid and ill-advised. Like, _you’re not those terrible things_. Like, _you’re not alone_. “You’re not a parasite. You're _not_."

Kylo keeps his eyes on her, watching. Slowly, inch by inch, he touches his hand to hers.

Session 17

”Are you okay?”

Rey blinks, noticing suddenly how close Kylo has gotten to her. He is kneeling beside her chair, looking at her with such an expression of concern, of tenderness, it makes Rey want to die a little. She realizes in the next moment that her eyes are filled with tears. She nods, swallowing hard. “I’m fine, Mr. Ren. Please, go sit.”

”You can call me -“ he starts, then cuts himself off abruptly. His hand is on her knee, stroking a small circle on her black stockings. Rey resists the urge to lean closer to him, and where did that come from? The desire to reach down and touch his face, trace a thumb down his nose and smooth the furrow of his brow? Rey opens her mouth, about to say something more, when Kylo continues, “Did something happen?”

Rey waves her hand, as if to say no big deal; she really does it to hide her face from him. “Nothing. I just ran into someone I’d rather not have.”

”Who?”

She shouldn’t say anything. It is unprofessional to say anything. It’s dangerous to say anything, too; Rey might as well be ordering a hit. Still, she hears herself answer, “My old foster father.”

Kylo’s jaw tightens. “He hurt you.”

”No. He used to. I’m fine, Kylo.”

His eyes widen at his name. Rey wants to take it back but can’t, and she can still feel the sound of it shaping her mouth: Kylo. “He made you cry. He made you afraid.”

Rey says, “Lots of things make me afraid.”

Kylo looks at her then, and it’s so open and vulnerable that she has to look away. “Like me?"

Slowly, Rey shakes her head. At that moment, it feels a little like she is watching herself from across the room, like her body is acting against her wishes and, even more, her best interests. Like the real Rey is sitting in a chair a dozen feet away, still thinking logically, pointing to each mistake with the clinical precision Leia taught her. _You see,_ she is thinking about herself, _this is a clear symptom of her of early attachment disorder_; how many times does she have to learn her lesson? “You don’t scare me,” this Rey is hearing herself say, and thinking all the while _how will you ever get better?_ But she can't begin to name the you she is thinking of. “I trust you.”

It’s then that his hand slides further up. For a horrible moment that goes on forever, Rey imagines him slipping that hand between her thighs, opening her up, opening her up they way she opens him up. But he only reaches for her hand and threads her fingers in his. “You don’t need to worry,” Kylo says in that low voice, as if they might be overheard, if only by each other. “I’ll take care of it,” he says, and he says it like what he means is _I’ll take care of you_.

Rey lets herself believe that, but only for a little while.

Session 39

The first time he fucks her it's in her office, on top of her desk.

He once, early on and in vivid detail, described a sex dream he'd had about her. He went on and on about what she looked like under her clothes, the sounds she made, the way she gripped the edge of the desk, how wet she was clenching around him. How he had wanted to crawl inside her and stay there, how he wanted to eat her alive.

Rey had shifted in her chair. She didn't know if she was uncomfortable, or something else. "Why are you telling me this?" she asked.

"So you know," he said softly. He leaned forward, his eyes intense. "So you know the things I want to do to you."

Ben mouths his way down her body, opening her legs with one hand. He reaches inside her like he is searching for something he can pull loose. Unravel her as easily as a tugged thread.

She thinks: this man is going to kill me. She thinks: I am going to let him. 

Session 22

She has had a bad day. This is her reason, her excuse. She's having more and more of those lately, but Rey won't think about that for too long because thinking about something means to concede to its existence. She will not concede to this.

Kylo is telling her about his neglectful father, complaining about his absentee mother, complaining about the stress of his job and the stupidity of his coworkers, and Rey wants to shake him by the shoulders and scream, _we all have problems, buddy!_

An offhand comment about his uncle being a psychiatrist too, not that he means to insult her, comparing her to that asshole, is what finally sets her off. "You know, Mr. Ren," she snaps, voice testy, "there are people who would give anything to have a family."

That stops him cold. Rey feel a shiver go through her as Kylo considers her for a moment. He seems like he might be thinking, weighing the consequences of his words, the way she should have. “Like you?” he says.

Rey knows what she needs to be: cool, collected, detached. A silent, unknowable, all-knowing figure. This line can't be uncrossed. But she hears herself answering, “Yes. Like me.”

”You’re an orphan." It isn't a question, and he doesn't phrase it as one.

”As good as," she says. She isn't being his therapist, she knows. She doesn't know what she's being; a person, maybe. She is confessing something, the way a lover would, a whisper into a pillow at night. Rey's voice is quiet, soft, and Kylo is leaning toward her like he wants to hear, wants to know about her. "My parents abandoned me. Just like you did yours. Why is it that you reject the very thing I, and millions like me, crave over everything else?”

Kylo doesn't answer her question. Rey knows she has made a mistake, is in the process of making a mistake. She can't bring herself to stop. "There's nothing wrong with you," he says.

"I know that," she says, too fast.

"There's nothing inherently wrong with my family," he says, more thoughtful than he's ever been. "They were just - people. But I couldn't let them hold me back anymore. It hurt too much. I couldn't - It doesn't matter. We're talking about you."

"We shouldn't. It doesn't matter."

"It does. It does. I want to know," he says. His eyes are clear, shining dark brown in the light. He looks so young in that moment, open and kind. "I want to know you."

Rey opens and closes her mouth like a fish. There is no reason to invite him in, no reason to give him information that he could use against her, things that would ruin her objectivity, ruin her ability to disconnect, and Rey doesn't care. She wants to tell him.

So she does.

Session 14

Kylo seems determined not to look at her. Rey almost rolls her eyes, uncrossing and recrossing her legs. He had spent their last session in near total silence as well, petulant about his perceived rejection. 

“Well,” she starts. “We can spend this hour in silence again, or we can discuss what happened.”

”What happened,” Kylo snaps, “is I said I love you and you said fuck no.”

”I said I understand your feelings, but that they are not appropriate or possible for me to reciprocate. You may feel these feelings of love, but that does not mean they are as genuine as you think.”

”I do love you.”

”You don’t know me. You don’t know anything about my life beyond seeing me one hour a week. For all you know, I’m married with seven children.”

Kylo smiles, seeming momentarily amused. “You’re not married, Rey.”

”Dr. Smith,” she corrects.

”I’m wounded, doctor. I thought we were beyond these formalities.”

”We aren’t.”

”I know you,” he says softly. “I know your friends, I know your schedule. I know you have no pets but want a dog. That you can’t stand your dates overstaying their welcome, and that you can’t connect with them because of your past. I know you dream about the ocean, about living on a island with nothing and no one around to hurt you. I know you dream about me. I know you, Rey, because we are the same.”

Rey is trembling. “You had me followed.” When he doesn’t reply, she lets out a shaky breath. She should have known better. She should have been watching her back from the moment he stepped into her office. She stands up, walking to her desk as calmly as she can. “You’re wrong about me.”

”I’m not.” Kylo is irritated. She sees again what she saw that first day - the tension in his body, the untold violence. He could snap her in half, if the impulse struck him. Strangely, she doesn’t linger on that thought. It doesn’t worry her.

”I think we’re done for today,” she says. “My secretary will refund you the cost of the session.”

”Rey -“

“I will be referring you to another psychiatrist. Let me find my contact book so I can write down the information -“

Kylo is in front of her before she can blink. “They won’t take me. You know they won’t take me. Please, Dr. Smith, I’m still having the panic attacks, I need your help, I’ll stop. I’ll stop. Whatever you want me to do. Please.”

His voice breaks on the last word, and at that Rey pauses. “Alright,” she says after a while. He presses closer to her, but it isn’t a threat. It should be. She should feel intimidated, but she doesn’t. Instead, it’s something else. She won’t name it.

His body is inches away from hers, and Rey feels her mouth go dry. She clears her throat and gestures to the chair. “Sit back down.”

He nods, blinking fast, and walks back to his chair. Rey takes a breath and, after a moment, sits across from him. 

Session 30

Rey drives home. She's got the radio on way too loud, still trying to drown out the sound of asphalt crunching under jackhammers and drills. If it isn't one thing being torn down and rebuilt, it's another. Kylo told her at their session earlier about a time that his father nearly got the family in a wreck trying to merge into a lane that was closed for construction. His mother, he said, screamed her head off the whole time, and didn't stop yelling even after they got home. Rey had laughed, told him about driving in America for the first time, Finn and Rose and Poe piled up in the backseat, each of them clinging to the doors like they were ready to cut loose and bail the moment she started in on the wrong side of the road. She wonders, now, why she'd mentioned her friends by name, why she told him the story at all, but Kylo had laughed at the time and it made something in her heart thump loudly and she'd grinned too widely at him to consider it at the time. She doesn't know what's playing over the radio now but she doesn't like it, it makes something in her chest constrict and flutter wildly like a bird in a cage, _they are one person they are two alone they are three togeth-_ so she changes the dial to another station that's playing some mindless pop song she's never heard before. Rey is going to stop this, whatever she's started with Kylo, because it is not right and it's wrong and he is a bad person. (She isn't going to stop this.)

The trees lining the side of the highway seem taller somehow, and healthier, and greener than before.

Session 38

Rey is staring him down when she finally allows herself to choke out the words. “Tell me about your family.”

Kylo shrugs. “There’s not much more to say. My parents are divorced and I haven’t talked to either of them in years. We’ve already gone over this.” Rey slams her hand on the arm of her chair, and he jumps. “Jesus Christ -“

”You haven’t told me a thing that’s true," she spits out. She feels venomous, like a snake. Like a shrill and jealous wife. "Not one goddamn thing. You know there is no way I can help you if you won’t be honest. Just tell the truth for once in your life. Ben.” At his name, Ben’s face goes suddenly blank. Rey continues, trying to stop the tears from falling, but feels them leak from her eyes, etching their way down her cheeks. “Luke told me everything. How you abandoned your family, my mentor, Leia. How you tried to kill your father. How you ruined the lives of countless people, for what? For money? You are, without a doubt, the most horrible, monstrous thing I have ever laid my eyes on, and I want you to stand up and leave my office and never, ever come back.”

He is silent for a moment - Kylo or Ben or whoever he is. Rey can’t tell anymore. ”Did he tell you what happened?”

”Yes,” she bites out, “he told me everything about what happened. You shot your own father. You had a family that loved you and you just gave it away, like it was nothing. No, you didn’t give it away - you crushed it into pieces."

”He didn’t tell you,” Ben says. “He didn’t tell you anything at all. He didn’t tell you how my _family_,” he says it like a dirty word and Rey wants to scream, what she wouldn’t give for what he had, _what she wouldn’t give_, “abandoned me. How my perfect mother and father sent me away to live with my uncle, and how he kicked me out too. Snoke was the only person who would take me in. I was 16. I bet none of them ever mentioned that. I bet they pretend they don't have a son.”

Rey wracks her brain, trying to remember if Leia ever once said anything about a child, if there was a single picture of Ben in her apartment. She can't think of one thing. "Why did you try to kill you father? He loved you.”

Ben leans forward, his eyes fixed on her. "Han never loved anything that couldn’t give him something. So he never loved me.”

”That’s not true,” she protests.

Ben ignores her. He seems unhinged suddenly, like he has been stripped of the thin layer of civility keeping him from going completely feral. Rey remembers herself at the same moment: the slightness of her build, the closed door, the space between their bodies small and getting smaller the closer he leans himself to her, like a vine growing toward the sun. “I shot him because it was the last thing they ask of you in my family. In the First Order. Because you need to let go of everything holding you back if you are ever going to become the person you’re meant to be. Wouldn’t you do the same?”

Rey realizes she’s shaking, but from what she doesn’t know. Fear? Anger? This is her job, to know and categorize and sort neatly the intricacies of the human psyche. And she is failing. “If I had a family who loved me, ever, I would rather die than hurt them.”

”Yeah, well. I’d rather kill than be killed.” He smiles, only it’s more like a sneer. Rey realizes too late that she miscalculated, that he is digging in his heels. “You didn’t seem to mind it so much when it came to your foster father. Do you want to hear about it, Rey? Do you want me to tell you how he begged for his life?”

Rey feels a distant pounding in her ears, like the sound of drums beating from very far away. She isn’t cut out for this; she should never have let him through the door. She should never have laid eyes on him. Rey stands up and walks to her desk, pressing her fist over her mouth. “Stop it.”

”You never asked me about it, did you. You knew what I’d do, that’s why you told me. You want to tell me the names of your real parents too, so I can do the same to them. You want them to suffer like you suffered.” 

”No, I don’t.”

”You do," Ben says. She can hear him behind her, standing up, closing the distance between them, step by agonizing step. "You’re just afraid to admit it to yourself.”

Rey turns around, and he is so close to her right then. She can see every freckle on his skin, every eyelash brushing his cheek. She wants to reach out, but she keeps her hands on her desk and grips the edge until her knuckles turn white. ”You don’t have to do this, Ben. You aren’t trapped.”

”It’s too late.” Suddenly, he doesn’t look angry or cruel any longer - only resigned, bone-tired.

"It's not too late," she says, with too much conviction. This is what she wanted, isn't it? To break him down, to tear down the walls of his psyche, of his heart. She isn't so sure she likes what she's seeing. Or maybe she isn't so sure she should like it. "I'm here to help you. That’s my job.”

”No,” he says slowly, drawing out every word, “no, it’s more than that now. Anyone else would have dropped me the second they realized who I am. You didn’t. Why?”

She is quiet for a time. Ben's body is so near to her body. She can't remember the last time she let anyone get so close, and it makes her think, oddly enough, of vampires. It makes her think of his mouth on her neck, teeth threatening, mirrors broken; it makes her think, please, won't you come in, make yourself at home. "I don't know," she admits after a while. She doesn’t look up at him. She doesn’t know if she can. “You need to leave.”

Ben presses closer to her. "Be honest with yourself. For once."

"Ben." It's almost a whisper when it leaves her mouth, and Rey wants - she doesn't know what she wants. She wants him to get out of her life for good, she wants him to be a better man, she wants to help him, she wants to heal him, she wants him to do it himself, she wants to smash him into pieces and swallow him down. She wants everything. Rey looks up and he is a breath away from her, and she will not ruin her life over this.

(She will.)

"I think it's best if you go," she says finally. Ben nods slowly, backing away from her. He pauses at the door, seeming like he might say one more thing, before he closes his mouth and leaves without further ceremony.

Rey only allows herself to cry once she hears his car pulling out of the parking lot. And it is only for a minute.

Session 1

"Mr. Ren," Rey calls into the waiting room. At her words, the only man in the waiting room stands up. His eyes are dark, his hair black, his clothing impeccable. He steps hesitantly forward.

"That's me," he says, walking to her.

(This is what Rey does not know yet: His name. His family. His profession. The taste of his mouth. The feeling of his arms around her. The feeling of him inside of her.

Rey doesn't know any of this yet.

But she will.)

Rey smiles brightly. "It's nice to meet you, Mr. Ren. You can come in."

Session 39

He is in the lobby waiting after her last patient for the day leaves.

Rey makes the mistake is letting him in.

(She will not admit this to herself, not even after everything that happens: this is not a mistake. Mistake implies accident, mistake implies error - the car wrapping itself around the telephone pole, the wedding china smashed on the floor, the heirloom lost in a corner of the attic, never seen again.

This, she will not think, is not a mistake.)

”Talk,” she says once the door closes. “Give me one good reason.”

”I can't.” Ben is standing with one hand still on the doorknob. He looks like hell, frozen over and partially thawed. Rey will not feel sorry for him. She will tell him to leave and she will never hear the names Ben Solo or Kylo Ren ever again. And it won’t be a moment too soon.

“Did you know who I was when you called? Did you know that I knew your family?"

”Not at first. Not for a little while.”

”And then? Why wouldn’t you leave?”

”How could I? By then, I was already in lo- I told you this.”

”You’ve been lying to me for the better part of a year.”

”I’ve told you everything,” he says, his voice low and soft. Gentle. It reminds her of something she heard once in a dream, and it makes her think of his words to her months ago, that she’s dreamed of him. That they have dreamed of each other. “Everything. You know more about me than anyone else in the world. You think that’s normal, for me? Every time I came here I was at risk. If Snoke found out through anyone I was seeing you, I’d be at the bottom of the ocean by now.”

"You aren't ‘seeing’ me.” Rey rolls her eyes, scoffing to cover a shiver. “I'm your therapist, not your girlfriend."

"Yeah, well, I'm not your patient,” he tosses back. “If I was, you'd have dropped me months ago. The first day. You’d never have answered the phone.”

Rey opens her mouth to respond, to throw something in his face, and shuts it abruptly. There is nothing for her to say, she realizes, because in order to speak she’d have to be right. “Then what are you doing?” she asks after a long moment. 

Ben takes another step toward her. She knows at once that if he touches her, he won’t stop. She wants him to. Touch her.

He lifts his hand up to her face and brushes his knuckles against her cheek, his thumb tracing over her lips. “I’m going to fuck you,” he murmurs.

For all that she imagined this - and she did imagine it, she can admit that now, she thought of his body covering her body, his full mouth between her legs, him inside her - she didn’t expect to be the one who kisses him. Rey arches up, catching his lower lip between her teeth and biting down hard. Ben groans, his hands reaching for the hem of her skirt and shoving it up. It's tight on her hips, and he has to wrench it before he can slide his hand beneath her underwear, curling against her. Rey lets out her breath, and to her this feels like rolling thunder, lightning, earthquakes, tornados: a natural disaster.

He would kill for her. Has done it already. Rey never knew the thought of such a thing would give her a thrill, would make her want him closer and closer, wrap her hands around his neck and pull, but it does. Ben lifts her easily and sets her on the desk behind them, and she remembers how that same strength made her nervous only a few months ago. She thinks of his hand holding a gun, now stroking through the lips of her cunt and finding the place he can slip inside. She thinks of his body beaten, covered in blooming bruises, his arm now spanning the length of her back, holding her in place while he draws these little breathy moans out of her.

"This is what you wanted," he's muttering, over and over again, against her collarbone, shoulder, breasts, _this is what you wanted_. He sounds like he's accusing her, and maybe he is. Rey doesn't really care. She is well beyond that point now, the time when she could still walk away from this. She doesn't know when that happened. She couldn't even guess.

"Yes," she answers, and again, "yes," when he finally peels her clothing off. His mouth is open, his cheek on her cheek. Rey can hear his breath stuttering when she grips the front of his pants, feel his cock hard under her hand. His clothes are next, her fingers trembling over the buttons of his shirt. 

She's already wet and wanting; she was from the moment he walked in. Rey hooks her ankle around the back of his thigh and pulls, and then he's working his way inside her, and Rey is laying down and letting him in. _This is what you wanted_, she thinks as Ben thrusts into her, slowly and carefully at first, getting his cock wet enough to slide in with ease, then faster, harsher, enough to make her toes curl. Ben groans, and it sounds like he's in pain, like she is hurting him, but it's only how good she feels, he's telling her, it's that she's so fucking good. He's gorgeous like this, his black hair falling in his face, the muscles of his arms flexing under his pale skin - all that untold violence simmering underneath.

Rey wants to close her eyes, but she doesn't; she can't look away. Sweating, laboring, groaning - it could look, to someone watching, like he's hurting her. His fingers curved, gripping her thigh hard enough to bruise, his teeth threatening the hollow of her throat - it would be more than easy for him to dig into her flesh and _rip_. But she knows Ben, she knows him better than anyone. And, she realizes with a start, he knows her.

Maybe, she thinks, that is all she wanted: a man capable of breaking her in half. Maybe, she thinks, that's something she could call love.

Ben hits a spot inside her body that makes her scream, and Rey stops thinking altogether.

Session 40

Ben drives her home. Rey leans her head against the cool glass of the window and watches the streetlights hanging high over the road passing by in a rhythm, a great exhale every time another one appears. The radio is turned off, the road around them quiet, almost empty. It feels peaceful like this, the city. She used to imagine herself here, not here here, but somewhere quiet and peaceful and with someone she loves. _I could be with you,_ he'd said in that room, and he held her in his arms like he was trying very hard to be gentle, _I could be someone who is with you_. Like he was saying, I could be that person for you. And what else could she do? She'd made the decision before he even stepped through the door.

"Where do you want to go?" Ben asks.

Rey shrugs her shoulders, letting her eyes drift shut, letting the sound of the engine and the sight of the trees and the feeling of it all thrumming in her chest lull her to sleep. She can still feel him inside her, feel his mouth open on her neck. "Just wake me up when we get there," she says.


End file.
